


and you may someday know the truth

by thewarmweb



Category: Original Work
Genre: Accents, Age Regression/De-Aging, Asphyxiation, Betrayal, Bisexual Female Character, Boss/Employee Relationship, British Character, Butlers, Caregiver, Christianity, Closeted Character, Come Swallowing, Corporal Punishment, Crossdressing, Dark, Derogatory Language, Dolls, Dom/sub Undertones, Dry Humping, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/F, Finger Sucking, Fondling, Foreign Language, Friendship, Groping, Hair Braiding, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inequity, Jealousy, Light Bondage, Loss of Virginity, Maids, Makeup, Nipple Play, Nobility, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Non-Consensual Touching, Oral Fixation, Period Typical Attitudes, Platonic Female/Female Relationships, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Rape/Non-con Elements, Russia, Russian Empire, Sharing a Bed, Singing, Slow Build, United Kingdom, Victorian, Victorian Attitudes, Wealth, Widowed, widows everywhere
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:00:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29460174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewarmweb/pseuds/thewarmweb
Summary: A talented songstress and sister to many, young Wilhelmina longs to rise above the squalor of the streets despite herself. Thus, when a rather intriguing proposition is presented to her—one in which she will be expected to take up residence with a well-to-do lady and take care of the woman’s toddler daughter's every need—she knows there is little room for hesitation.Things, naturally, are not quite as they seem.
Relationships: Innocuous Girl Hired As A Caregiver & Her Employer, Innocuous Girl Hired As A Caregiver/Her Charge
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. Wilhelmina

It was 1897 in London, and rain and wind had the citizens on their unsullied knees, despair and cries for mercy woven through their every breath. The day had brought along an unlikely cold that sent the people scurrying into their homes, into the homely heat of them—into palaces, orphanages, everything in between.

At this hour, the sun had taken to resting upon her blanket of clouds, sprawled as a stout cat might before a crackling fireplace, but the moon had not yet emerged on the scene. It was that void right in between day and night, indeed, and with a huff, a girl slid into a quiet alley, weaving her way through a maze of back streets. She, too, was returning home after a day spent jostling between beggars and carriages of the Imperial alike—if, perhaps, 'home' was not too generous a word. 

Wilhelmina’s mother, in all of a fool’s fairness, was not a wholly cruel person, and never had been. Not naturally, no. Instead, she was an embittered one, hard-pressed from years upon years of factory work, who had bred seven children and lost half of them in a year, and then her husband. Not unlike many her age, she was a widow. Unlike many women her age, however, she was tough and ardent, and just a touch callous like her mother had been, in her day notorious for making mutts of wolves so that the wealthy could flaunt them. A symbol of wealth; an outlandish luxury, Mina thought each time her mother reminisced the woman. 

Still, she had not ever lacked anything. (When you have no more than you need, you need nothing more.) By hook or by crook, however dreadful the circumstances, they had made ends meet, her mother and she. Taking in the neighbors' laundry; making tasty, meatless broths, and selling them for as much as marketgoers were willing to give for them. Never had she known hunger like the most misfortunate did, whilst the lords and ladies in their lavish homes reeked of cigars from faraway lands, and sweets, and meat. Three meals a day, every week, every month, all year—no, when it came to hunger of the body, she was quite gorged.

It was, rather, and always had been, hunger of the _heart_ she was familiar with. 

It was a more discerning thing, and dishonorable, ailing for more than what this life could offer her but scrubbing floors and aiding her mother where the full-faced woman would accept her help. She knew it was not humble. She knew the Lord would not be proud of her, but she could not help it.

And so the girl dreamt, at night, head of dark curls reclined against her pillow, of reaching beyond the local children with her voice; enchanting street beggars and Imperials alike with it. She dreamt of being prettier, and rosier, and softer, and wearing bejeweled gowns instead of men’s blouses and her mother’s old coat, worn thin and patched, with which she hid her girlish shape and most of her face. She dreamt of being far away from here, in a land of her dreams, where water did not need to be wet to be real, nettles needed not be real to prickle her skin.

(These dreams, her mother used to tell her, when she, childishly eager, brought them up, as fruit went into baskets, and God and His word remained the most important of all things, went up on the highest shelves, out of reach. Such was simply the way of things for girls like her.)

When Mina slipped in the door, tonight, she was quiet, because her mother, she knew, was asleep at this hour, covered with rugs so that all one can see of her is the very tip of her nose. Laughter was what she heard before anything else. 

Footfall. The children, she assumed, fooling about in the room they had to share with her; the twins. Two sides to the same coin. While the boy, Anthony, brown-eyed and built just like their mother, and grandmother before her, for harsh weather and war and blood curdles, was about as meek as a lamb, his sister, Mary, who had their father’s coloring and shape of the face, had come of that age in her young life in which children commonly were no more satisfied with coloring and things of the like, but instead chose to refuse all that was asked of them by way of amusing themselves.

Though all too often they merely left their things behind in place of tidying up after themselves and were as willful as they were shameless in their youth, she loved them very much, and in turn, they adored her (though it is, admittedly, a collectively acknowledged truth that children are seldom particular so long as they are fed, bathed, and coddled from time to time with attention and warmth). In fact, for quite a few years they had been what stayed her hand; had been what keep her bound to the house, their little living space. It was they who assuaged her when their mother grasped onto her arm a bit too firmly, or when she reminded the girl that she would soon become an old spinster, piteous as could be, unless she roped a darling young man—one capable of ensuring a respectable inheritance for their children, of course—into marriage quickly. To her, there were but a handful of things quite as placating as seeing them smiling contentedly, their stomachs rattling as she minced onions and carrots, and watching with wide eyes of wonder as she meticulously braided the fine, dark brown hair of the girl and boy alike.

Rhythmic knocking at the front door startled her out of her idle daydreaming. A loud noise, giving the impression of a large, ominous hand. 

For a moment, she fretted, unsure of whom might visit their shabby home in the evening, if at all. She wondered, briefly, whom might think it a good idea to come knocking so impudently at this hour if they’d known the sort of woman her mother was. No, it was not often they had guests to lift the spirits in the house—it had been weeks, months, perhaps, since there were last people here that did not belong to the family, tossing gossips and witticisms back and forth and sniggering about all kinds of matters she had not understood then, and did not even now. 

And so, her mind cobwebbed, thoughts tossing about in her head like a moth at a lamp, she approached the door, resting against it with her body, pale-side of her upper arm pressed against the harsh wood. 

“Y—yes?” 

“Is this the home of Wilhelmina Wintersmith?” The stranger asked. Their voice most resembled a masculine one, and it was peculiar, lilted, with an accent to it that she could not quite place. If they were foreign as she suspected, she wondered what business they had here—and more so, even, with her. 

A little frown contorted her features. 

“This is my mother’s home,” said she, in response, calmly as she could. But she tip-toed from where she had been standing to the kitchen area, reached into a cabinet, hands trembling, then slipped a knife into her pocket. 

She had heard before of persons feigning charm, or authority, and attacking but a moment later with the sudden quickness of a viper. She did not think this man capable of such cruel reign, for it was never in her nature to assume the worst upon meeting someone, but she could not risk it. Were this man here with the intent of thieving something from their home, or worse, take from her dignity and pride, she knew she would never live it down. It would all be her fault, and she would have to live with it; would have to lead the rest of her life reminded of it each day, if not by her own mother, then by the scars and bruises. 

“Why are you here tonight? What brings you to our door?”

“I am Mr. James. In my mistress’ stead, I come here to make you an offer. If you open that door, then perhaps we can discuss it,” said the person, Mr. James, at the other end. Not a hint of malice in their voice. It soothed her, acknowledging that, if only a little. “Of course, if you are uninterested, you may say so immediately. I will not bother you again if such is the case. I will leave you be, and move on, and find another.”  
Mina frowned, looking back and forth from the front door to that of the room where her mother was sleeping. Pondered. There was a moment of rare and utter silence that followed, in which she repeated to herself his words. An _offer_. 

It was not often girls like her—dirt-poor, dull as dishwater—were made propositions. No interesting ones besides those that had been thrown at her in the streets since she had lost the scrawniness of a child and filled out in her garments, ordinarily by men who smelled like alcohol and stale sweat and longed only for uncouthly things.

She brought one hand to the doorknob and twisted it, the other fingering the seam of her pocket. 

Standing there pridefully, she found, was a man, his crooked nose upturned and beneath it an impeccably groomed mustache. Despite the meticulousness with which he presented himself, in fine attire and pristinely polished footwear, the girl could discern between the black of his hair, both on his head and above his mouth, specks of grey, and on his skin slight lines of age, tally marks of a life well-lived—or perhaps one full of worry. She imagined it was, rather, the first. 

“An… _offer_ , you say?” 

The man’s eyes twinkled ever so slightly; she thought of cigars, and sweets, and meat. _Wealthy_.

Before giving her an answer, this Mr. James stepped forward, entering the house as though he owned it. Wilhelmina watched, frowning, growing speedily anxious whilst he merely looked about himself, caressing his chin with two of his gloved fingers. 

It was not condescending, his gaze… as much as it appeared curious. As if he was imagining what it must be like to live as her family and she did. 

“Wha—what brings you here, sir? What is it you want from me, a girl as ordinary as myself?”

“No, child. The question is more so… about what I want you to _do_ for me.” He clicked his tongue, drawing a cigar from his waistcoat pocket, and lit it. Laughed. “The thing is this: I need a girl.”

A chastened gasp interfered with the silence permeating the room. “I am very sorry, but I am _not_ a prostitute! I do not know what—”

“You misunderstand me,” The man interrupted and smiled, visibly amused at how the girl’s cheeks burned rose-red with shame. He waved a curt hand in the air. “Tell me, can you take care of a child? Can you bathe one? Arrange their hair?”

“Yes.”

“Can you dress them? Keep them occupied in ways that are beneficial to them?”

“Yes.”

“And most importantly: don’t you want to get away from here? Give to your siblings what you never had, with besides it a little extra for you, to spend on whatever it is your heart may long for? Jewels, perhaps? Delicacies only few can afford?”

“W—well. Yes?”

“It is a question you must ask not to me, but yourself.” 

“I don’t understand,” murmured Mina. 

Could it be this easy, she asked herself, having the comfortable life that had always seemed so beyond her reach? She could hardly believe it. 

“Of course you do not! Not yet, at least,” he said, looking her squarely in the eye. “Allow me to tell you a story—one which knows its beginning, quite some years ago, in the Russian Empire. A baby girl is born into a wealthy family. A family known for exuberant money, and political power, and perhaps most of all, beauty. In her adolescent years, this family often travels. They insist on seeing every city, examining every building, looking into every face they pass. They try every foreign food they find and appreciate even the ones they hate. 

One fateful summer, they come to the United Kingdom, as well. And it is here, the girl, young Lady Lebedeva, by now a flourishing young woman, meets a man of extraordinary charm. Tall, dark-haired, with eyes as blue as the clearest ocean. From the very first moment, though she speaks no languages but Russian and all the English that is required to order a single meal, the two are enthralled with one another. And soon…”

Mr. James trailed off. Wilhelmina waited, transfixed, wing-tipped eyes wide. 

“And soon, the two of them fall in love. They fall deeply, terribly, heartbreakingly in love; the barrier between them shattered easily through stumbling gestures and ready smiles, and quickly, sickly sweet, clandestine kisses. As lovers so often do, they marry. They have a child. Again, a little girl. A beautiful one, indeed, with hair as pale as snow and her father’s eyes.” 

Falling into silence for a moment; the rest of the story unsaid, palpable. 

Mina understood. 

In her mind’s eye she envisioned taking this offer that was laid out so aesthetically before her, imagined softer sheets and ointments and strange, dulcet perfumes, fresh apricots and strawberries and warm chocolate for breakfast, yet inexorably, doubted. She doubted, even if this—slipping away from reality into one of greater sophistication, and beauty, and comfort—was what she had yearned for such a long time. Even if she had for such a long time dreamt of her little brother and sister knowing a childhood so very different from her own.

She thought she may well come to have regrets, once she would find herself far away from this miserable hovel that she had all her life called her home, tending to a stranger’s child and wishing, all the same, she was instead slicing vegetables for the evening stew in this very kitchen she stood inertly now, the gentleman before her waiting, watching. He did not immediately press for an answer, or even an affirmation, but observed, his face impassive. 

“This… this child you speak of—does it have a name?” She questioned, startling, flushing an innocent’s red when she grasped her mistake, but a breath’s time later. “ _She_ , I mean. The child is a little girl, you said, yes?”

The man nodded. “Yes, yes. Well, like any other child she was given a name, of course. Hers is Yekaterina. Her mother, dotingly, calls her Katya. Katy, at times. She is, truly, her mother’s utmost light and joy. She has been, very much so, since the day her husband—may his soul rest in peace—passed on.”

Mina watched him rouse from where he had made himself comfortable, legs spread, and clasp his hands with a theatrical flourish. She did not look at him as he approached, instead at his feet, his footwear, though she knew he saw her. There was something practiced about his gaze, something studious, just as there was something like crushed flowers to the smell of him. 

“Well,” he said, inching towards the door once more. “What will it be, girl? The choice is wholly yours to make.”

Of course it was what she wished for. This went unsaid. She too knew this. His words were to her more than attractive, the arrangement enviable, she was certain, to many a girl her age and situation, with no devil in a box springing up at her. 

She would have been a fool to say ‘no’.

And so, “Yes. Yes, I’ll do it.”

“Very well. Lady Lebedeva's courier will collect you in two days. With her, you shall discuss precisely what is expected of you and, of course, your salary. You’ve made a splendid choice, girl. You’ll not regret it.”

And satisfied, smiling, Mr. James left, grinning from one ear to the other, and the girl-child closed the door behind him, settling soundlessly under the covers in the room where her brother and her sister were fast asleep, and she did not wonder any more as to why he had come to her, all gracelessness and rough hair and slippery, juvenile movements. It was like children’s magic, like a fragment of a tale out of a storybook, and she was lucky. 

She would not regret this.


	2. The Tongueless Bell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilhelmina, in her blushing and bashful, leaves her home behind and travels to her new one.

In two days indeed Lady Lebedeva's chauffeur, barely after dawn, arrived in one of those curious motorcars that Wilhelmina had never seen in person before. 

She had woken at five, foggy-headed and keen, slipping effortlessly into the very best of her clothes after washing herself and arranging her hair to the best of her abilities, yet had refused when she was told by her mother to eat, to appease the hunger that surely would come to her, even if it was not yet present now. She’d no appetite, she had said, before averting her eyes. 

By that very daybreak, and the one before it too, nothing was in the girl but tension and thrill both. The eternal question: what lay ahead of her? It burned vividly in her mind. 

Her mother—who nibbled around the edges of her food around the wooden-made table, fooling about with it—no, spoiling it—like a young child—had been unhappy, initially. Perhaps it was the notion of an empty nest, perhaps it was that this miniature world of hers, led by the hand of her children, would be so suddenly dull without one of them, or perhaps it was the suddenness of this, despite the inevitability, that struck her, but the woman was beyond dissatisfied with the news that Wilhelmina brought to her with a careful mouth. She’d not shown it on her face, she had not spoken it, had not made it real, but there was a fire in her eyes, genuine vitriol to her response that told the girl more than words were capable of.

The sugary tea before Harriet Wintersmith steeping in sulking silence as her daughter had busied herself with washing the dishes in the sink, the latter heard it loud and clear: “I knew, one day, just like your rotten father, you would abandon me.” 

Wilhelmina had blinked at her mother with wet eyes, scathed. 

And then had pleaded her to please understand that she did not merely accept this—indeed, somewhat ambiguous—offer from a stranger to fulfill her whims or immodest desires, as her own father had done years ago, but at once for her, to ease the burden that rested upon her aging body, and even more so for the two younglings who surely deserved more than this. With every fiber of her beating center she had pleaded her to recognize that as callow a young girl as she might have been, and forever would be in her eyes, she knew very well what she wanted, and above all, what she wanted was for the four of them to rise above the squalor of these streets. For them to know what it was to truly live, as opposed to merely surviving. 

Harriet, in response, had only scoffed and left her standing there at the very edge of tears. 

The rest of that day, she spent locked away in her room like a hermit in their home and did not leave it even to eat. (Wilhelmina, ever the darling, had brought some to her despite this. Had not said a word as it would not be listened to anyway, but left it right in front of the door, knocked thrice, and then returned to the children, who were already eating with abandon.)

This morning, by divine intervention or mere fortune, had been different. She’d not prayed for it overnight, but it was different indeed. To be sure, her mother was not content as she was whenever she saw the beautiful white roses with pinkish buds they could never afford on the market, but nor was she particularly prickly as she had been the one before, sitting glossy-eyed in her nightdress while her daughter pinched her cheeks for subtle color and rehearsed her manner, her way of speaking. 

Like a puny blossom floating along a river, brought wheresoever fate willed it, she supposed her mother had come to terms with things. 

“You’ll come see us, won’t you, Minnie?” Mary had asked from beside Harriet. With a downturned mouth and frown, every angle and inch of his face mildly to moderately devastating, Anthony too had watched and listened with great interest.

She’d smiled, a white crescent, and spoken as though she knew it as a fact and not simply a hope. “Of course.” A dainty hand reaching out to the girl's head, and then the boys, ruffling the already unkempt arrangement of their hair. “Of course, you two. I’ll be back here before you know it. I promise.”

Sitting in the fair glow of the morning, with the light of the sun trickling in through the window, Anthony had smiled boyishly, curling into his elder sister's touch like the very tendrils of his hair, but Mary had only seemed half assured by her promise. 

Now, the twins, alongside their mother, looked on as Wilhelmina’s escort—and Lady Lebedeva’s trusty chauffeur—put what little luggage she was to take with her in the back of the sleek, black vehicle he had come here in. 

“This is it, then,” Wilhelmina began. “I’ll write you, mother. Will you please read my letters to them? Will you, if you wish to, write back to me? I would… it would mean the world to me. I mean it.”  
For a moment, Harriet was quiet as the night. 

When she did speak again, an unending moment later in where her three children could only gawk at her, her features were softer than they had ever been before. Mellow. Mild. Motherly, almost. “I will, my beautiful girl. I’ll miss you. It is true.”

There was something so very vulnerable about it, the way Wilhelmina then ran to her, like a missing child into their parent's longing arms, and held onto her as though withdrawing for but a breath's time would tear her to bits. The grin on her face was blinding. It was the lightest thing about between the scent of sweet rot and mawkish moss of these streets, the brightest thing curious onlookers—concealed as well as they could be behind their shawls of handmade curtains—had seen in months, years, even as she wept, and shook, and trembled, hiccupping whilst her mother cupped her face between the calloused palms of her hands.

“Don’t cry,” she jeered, softer than it was sharp. “That’s hardly proper for someone who is to be something of a lady.”

“Yes, yes. I will not cry anymore. I promise it.” Mina was quick to dry her tears, perched high and mighty upon the apples of her cheeks. “I must… I must go now. They are waiting for me… whoever and wherever they might well be. Remember that I love you. And I always will.”

And so, young miss Wintersmith left behind her family in their shabby home, praying she would never again have to see them there. She settled in the intriguing automobile Lebedeva had sent out for her and could think, for a little while, as her mother and siblings grew smaller and smaller, and vanished eventually into nothingness behind her, only of thievery. Thought it impossible to have garnered such immense wealth in a sinless manner. Wondered where the line was between this and the thieves she’d heard had been hung for stealing rings off noblemen’s fingers, thick wallets from ladies who possessed more wealth than they knew what to spend on.

As one would.

But there were other things to think of, to consider, she conceded, at the very edge of a new life. (A beautiful bedroom, a sweet child to tend to, a mistress who would maybe even allow her the scraps of their fine meals.)

In any case, it came quickly to Wilhelmina that the drive to Lady Lebedeva’s estate would be a long one—one in which, however, she was fortunate to be perpetually surrounded by blooming, rolling fields, and flowers, and an unending silence: a stillness that allowed her plenty of room to contemplate. “Yekaterina.” She murmured, with distinct satisfaction, and something that felt vaguely akin to guilt. It sounded odd coming from her. A mouthful, a name that to her would soon become as familiar as the underside of her own hand, the inside of her own mouth. She held the name captive in her mouth, upon her tongue, and released with a soft breath and faint lift of a brow. It was a foreign thing, and strange. In a way, it was akin to the dawning realization she’d not see to Mary and Anthony falling asleep tonight, brushing their dark hairs out of their face and pressing a kiss upon their foreheads. 

And she’d promised—as she did herself when she was younger, teenaged, still yet a girl when her mother was at her crudest—she would not cry. 

And Wilhelmina had promised herself, too, she would not fall asleep—would take in every tree and building they passed by so one day she could tell the story to her siblings, her children, perhaps one day the ones after. Rivers, and forests, and persons, and life. A life she’d not been blessed with but a life she could hopefully show Anthony and Mary.

Alas.

She did very much doze off, simple clothing perturbed as her body, like a wet washing cloth, curled about the fine, soft silk of the seats. She did not dream as she so often did, but there was instead only blackness behind her eyes, a void she knew not how to untangle. 

The moment she opened them again, driven by the unbearably loud grumbling that welled inside her belly (... mother _had_ warned her), she could see two gargantuan gates of black steel. Imposing, intimidating, and immense, they looked like something torn right out of a night terror. Perhaps she _was_ dreaming, after all.

But the chauffeur spoke then, drawing her attention and gaze at once. _Not a dream, then,_ Wilhelmina figured. “Don’t get excited just yet,” he said, catching her eye. His tone, while polite, was serene, dismissive. “We’ve still a long way to go.”

~~

Nighttime had long fallen when finally, the girl arrived. Out of the window of the automobile, which had stopped at once, she could see the estate she had thought of in seemingly unending hours in the night. It was a beautiful home—a lavish home, finely built in a traditional style, and it was large enough, she guessed, to show to onlookers the persons of status, power, and wealth it housed. There was a large garden, with abundant white flowers, edged red, elegant pink ones on long, green stems and ones red as a lamb’s blood, surrounding it, flourishing in opposition to the rest of the grounds in its vividness. 

By the entrance, she noted, stood three women. They varied in ages and heights, in skin colors and sizes, but a constant was their garments and postures: they all wore the same simple dress that brushed the pale skin at their knees and stood demurely there, subservient, with their heads bowed ever so slightly and dainty hands folded behind their backs. They did not look back at her as she openly stared with intrigue, nor manage a small wave. 

As steered by her escort, who had in the small space between arrival and now gotten out of the vehicle himself and held open with a gloved hand the door for her, Mina stepped out, too, eyes wide and artless as they could be. She had very truly never seen an establishment quite this large; never before an establishment quite this beautiful. She'd never seen riches so apparent. It was laid out before her, so close and yet so very much out of reach; written in every little detail, every little piece of decoration she could witness. 

No, she was _entranced_. 

And then, startled, ever so suddenly out of her enchantment. 

“Come on, the Lady did not employ you to stand there and revel,” announced an unfamiliar voice. Mina looked about herself, finding quickly the source of the noise, high in pitch and nearly grating, transparently restless. Like a woman mourning, the person who came forth, lithe and golden-haired and dressed in black from head to toe save for the stark white of her collar, seemed unabashed by how her voice seemed to clamor in the dead of night. “Hurry, will you? You are already late as is. Come with me. _Quickly_.”

The lithe woman, holding a lit lamp which cast upon her face dark, long, nearly callous shadows, spun on the heel of her meticulously buffed footwear, whereupon the younger girl hurried to trail behind her, narrowly avoiding a loose step which appeared to creak in an ominous note each time it had to bear weight. 

Fortunately, Wilhelmina nor the woman fell prey to the offending step. 

As such, all the while pleased that her shoe had not caught on the step and even more so that she had not suffered a fatal fall, had not tumbled and bruised, it was in no time that she, together with the woman—who had by then broken her silence and had introduced herself as Clementine Arnault, or else Lady Lebedeva's housekeeper, in English, her tone however embellished with a heavy undertone that implied she had not been born here—found herself in the main wing of the estate. The interior, while she herself had thought it an impossibility, was even more stunning than the outside had been—there were, again, beautiful flowers everywhere. A painting of an abyss of green and red, and one of a market, much like the one she herself visited, but made nearly magical in hues of orange and green. 

To be true, she had anticipated some flaws, at least. Things she would gladly perfect if need be. A little dust here and there; perhaps an air of shabbiness, of a lack of effort. 

Yet there were none. Not a single one. And from within, she found, the estate felt even larger. _She_ felt even _smaller_. Under the dim lighting, she could feel for herself the vastness of the place, the clobbering of her footwear nearly deafening.

Then there was Clementine, of course, who spoke unabashedly, though Wilhelmina had presumed that at this hour her employer and her daughter would be long asleep. 

“The Lady sleeps on the second floor. As you may suspect, you are not to go there unless you are called upon,” scowling, the fair-haired woman pointed with one slender finger to the grandfather clock positioned near an ornate, wooden bookcase. “In the mornings, you will rouse at 5. If you struggle to get up, you will find in your room a ruler I have provided for you, which you shall use to beat your hands. The nerves there are particularly delicate. The pain you feel will keep you alert for quite some time.”

Wilhelmina flinched, trying her very best—but only barely succeeding—to keep up with the endless enumeration of particulars and regulations the woman was laying out before her as she weaved effortlessly her way through the estate. Still, she nodded.

“Breakfast for you and I both—and the rest of the staff—is served at 6 in the morning, sharp. Make sure you are on time, make sure you are not simply present, but also presentable. Do you understand?” 

"Yes, th-thank you, Lady Arnault. I understand," nodded Mina her head again in agreement; Clementine—though she hoped one day she would be permitted to refer to this woman of evident authority merely as 'Clem'—appeared satisfied with this. 

Moving forth in the company of little else than a horrifying, heartbreaking silence, the two women went a few halls further down into the heart of the house. The descent reminded her much of the endless mazes she from time to time traveled in her dreams. There was nothing to turn attention to next to the nightly tranquility, but for the sounds of their individual breathing and footsteps, the occasional whisper she presumed came from the three girls she had seen earlier, for but a moment. In quiet, the girl contemplated asking her new acquaintance a question or two, out of genuine interest and to mollify her own uneasiness in equal measure—she longed to ask if she’d married, or if she’d brought children onto this world. If she found it a delight to work for their employer, or rather a true nightmare. But despite her burning curiosity, she decided against indulging in this nearly juvenile attention of hers. She did not want to pry, nor make foes here when she had only just shown her face, had not even had the chance to settle in: in fact, she wished she could win over this Clementine—and the other house servants, too, if they would show themselves interested in pursuing friendship—who seemed to act first and foremost in the Lady's interest. 

And loyalty, Mina felt, just like truthfulness and ambition, was an admirable quality, of which she hoped those who had met her would also ascribe to her.

Eventually, much to her heart's content, the moment they reached a part of the estate hidden away from the rest, like a doll too broken to be played with, Clementine parted her mouth to speak. Wilhelmina felt like a burden—perhaps that of the tangible tension between this appraising woman and herself—was heaved from her shoulders.

"This is your room," she said, stepping aside to let Wilhelmina, too, into the chamber.

Following Lady Arnault's lead, she found the room was a meager thing, admittedly, when compared to the rest of the estate. It was not insufficient, but... a little rough around the edges, so to speak—a little disorderly. The size of the kitchen back at home, which at once happened to be the largest room in the house, her new sleeping place was painfully dull, with walls wholly naked and a sole window that did not allow inside enough light for it to illuminate the dingy surroundings. Right in front of it, there was a small mattress laid atop an old, rusted-over bedframe, which she knew would creak intently enough to keep her from her slumber. 

But, be as it may, she would not voice any complaints. Yes, she was a little disappointed, that was the truth of it—surely with what else she had seen—and Clementine may well have caught this in a faint glimmer of her doe eyes, but she would not speak it. Not even if there were rats about, or those nasty bugs mother liked to scare her into behaving with when she was even younger than the twins were, back when Elizabeth and Thomas had not yet wed into other families and still lived at home, tormenting mother with their casual, yet never ill-intended mischief. She'd not even think of it, of bothering anyone with her selfish findings—she was not a guest here, after all. 

Pleasant as that might have been, the Lady had not sought her out and brought her all the way here to lie upon the bed all day, to explore the hallways, admire the deadheaded roses outside, or to play dress up in the Lady's finest gowns and pearls. 

She'd come here to work. That was all that truly mattered.

"Yekaterina sleeps in the room right next to yours. At 7 come morning, after having your breakfast, you will meet her and the Lady in the girl's bedchambers to thoroughly discuss what is expected from you and further formalities, I'm sure. Be up at sunrise—you do not wish to know how easily you will be replaced if you make mistakes," Clementine commanded, closing the door swiftly behind her, seemingly feeling no need to await a response, nor wish her new peer a good night. Scathed only slightly, Mina told herself not to worry too much about it. Timid as she was at times, speaking so seldomly, and often times with an uncanny softness that made some believe she was more uninterested than anything else, she would charm her in one way or the other. She would do her very best to ensure it.

Dark hair fanned in a thick cloak upon her pillow, Wilhelmina managed a barely-there smile, one for herself, as she let her body fall down upon the mattress, spent and drowsing, and soon, she was out like a light, like a candle in the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the lady and little yekatarina will appear for the first time in chapter three.  
> thank you for reading! :)


End file.
